26th -28th October 2016, Paris, France
A joint workshop of the European Commission, the OECD and the Platform for Climate Adaptation and Risk Reduction (PLACARD) was held at the OECD in Paris, France, from 26 to 28 October 2016, two weeks before the final negotiations on the indicators and terminology for the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The meeting was attended by around 50 experts from international organisations, national and regional authorities, academia, and the private sector.
The goal of the meeting was threefold:
1) Discuss the proposed indicators for the Sendai Framework, including the feasibility and cost of collecting data and the benefits of data in informing national and international policy discussions on disaster risk reduction and climate change;
2) Focus on cross-over and linkages with data needs for the Paris agreement on climate change as well as the SDG’s;
3) Present and discuss ex-ante economic loss modelling approaches, and their link to ex post economic loss data collection.
The meeting heard detailed progress reports from 14 national experts on establishing national disaster loss databases compatible with the Sendai indicators and the results of two surveys carried out by the European Commission ('EU Loss Data Challenge') and the OECD ('Improving the evidence base on the costs of disasters').
The group discussed the proposed Sendai indicators, based on UNISDR's non-paper of 30 September 2016, with the aim of strengthening EU coordination and thus facilitating debate through well considered proposals in the third Open-ended Intergovernmental Expert Working Group that will take place from 14-18 November in Geneva. Discussions drew on experience gained in the past years and months by EU and OECD Member States in establishing national loss databases.
The debates demonstrated the great progress that has been made in establishing national loss databases in recent years worldwide. The group largely supported the updated technical non-paper and recognised the need to strike a balance between simple, globally applicable indicators as well as complex and varying national risk profiles.